Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: RE: Private use of Common Space

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Sep 18, 2005 Rob Sandelin (floriferous [at] msn.com) wrote:
>
> > At Sharingwood we allow private use of the commonhouse. It has to be
> > scheduled 30 days in advance, all Sharingwood functions take
> > precendent over private uses,
>
> What happens if a private event is scheduled 30+ days in advance and 
> after
> that a community event would like to make a conflicting use?
> Another way to say this is when does a private event get a firm 
> reservation?
> ever?

What happens is that private events don't get scheduled at times that 
are normally used by the community or the community moves aside for the 
one time a private event is already scheduled.

Our commonhouse is almost always full on Monday nights. No one would 
schedule a private event that night. If they did so, it would have to 
be months in advance and very important (like a wedding reception or 
something). Then the community events would just move.

But the larger issue here is that once the community has settled in and 
formed patterns of activity, everyone knows and respects them without 
having rules to cover all eventualities. At first you just have to try 
things and see what work. It's the only way to understand how everyone 
in this group feels and to try to accommodate those feelings.

Consider two approaches to the problem of community vs private use of 
commonhouse:

1. Appoint a committee that interviews residents, holds small group 
meetings, debates alternatives, etc., and writes a policy or a set of 
rules. The whole community consensus on policy. This process will take 
6-12 months depending on the contentiousness of the issue. The people 
writing the policy will have multiple meetings and be distracted from 
other activities.

2. Hold a community meeting and do a round asking people how they feel 
about events in the commonhouse. Make suggestions about what would seem 
to work best for all concerned. If there are no objections, record them 
in the minutes and see if they work.

Just doing a round directly addresses the feelings of _this_ group and 
avoids exploring all options available in the universe and then trying 
to word a carefully crafted covers-all bases policy.

If during the round, it becomes clear that there are many conflicting 
interests then the first long process may been to be followed -- but 
what will happen is that in the 6-12 months, most of the issues will 
work themselves out anyway.

I'm not speaking against clear policies, I'm just saying that in most 
instances, just discussing the issues and going with what works is 
sufficient. Our policy speaks to the contentious issues we have had -- 
religious worship, publicly advertised events, admission charges, and 
events that reserve the commonhouse very Tuesday night until 2010. It 
doesn't address all other things in the universe and it doesn't even 
prevent these kinds of activities -- it only says they must be floated 
for objections before they are confirmed as scheduled.

Our policy expresses the concerns of the community and states a 
procedure for addressing them.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org